


A Fallen Log Across a River

by BrownieFox



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, Character Death(s), Gen, Not Finale Compliant, Sokka centric, Time Travel, but it was in the hold timelines so don't worry about it, so hold on for a bumpy ride, spirits love sokka, tea with strangers, uh idk exactly where i'm going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24540823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieFox/pseuds/BrownieFox
Summary: Sozin's Comet comes. The Gaang fails.And the spirits join together to give them a second chance.Specifically, to give Sokka second chance, and a bit of extra help
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Sokka & The Gaang (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 187





	1. Prologue

Sokka doesn’t know when he got into the sea of bamboo, or how, or how to get out, but he stumbles on anyway, pushing the stalks out of his way, because there must be a way out somehow. His mind feels murky, like somebody thought it was a smart idea to fill his head with sea slugs. 

There seems to be no end in sight, despite how he knows there must be,  _ there has to be. _ How long has he been wandering like this? For that, how many times has he wondered that? Thoughts and emotions slip through him like a fast moving stream, and it would scare Sokka if he could hold onto fear for more than a few passing seconds at a time. 

Something russells through the bamboo in front of him, and Sokka feels fairly certain that  _ that  _ is new. He picks up his pace, desperate for some change from the monotony of wandering enterally in bamboo, lost and confused. 

A four-legged fox-like creature stands before him, looking up at Sokka expectantly, tail waving back and forth in long and lazy motions. It nods to Sokka and then turns around, wandering farther into the bamboo and weaving easily around the stalks. Sokka follows after it, not knowing what else to do. 

The bamboo doesn’t thin out, but ends abruptly. There is more bamboo all around him, but the fox has led him to a perfectly circular clearing. Sokka almost cries from the relief of something new, something else than endless bamboo, but a few seconds later he can hardly remember why there are tears in his eyes. 

“Now, none of that. Come here, have a cup with me.” 

Sokka blinks and shakes his head, a futile attempt to clear it. There is someone in the clearing, sitting on the ground before a fire. A teapot hangs above it and two ceramic cups beside it. The fox has moved to lie beside the fire, eyes still on Sokka, and after a moment Sokka joins it, sitting across from the person. It’s hard for him to get a clear look at the person, to know what they look like. When he thinks he understands what he’s looking at, they shift and change. 

They pour him a cup of tea, and the smell is somehow both familiar and foreign at the same time. He holds the cup on his hands, and it’s warm and grounding in a way he hadn’t realized he had missed.

He sips that tea, and the fog in his mind lifts. 

Sokka blinks, and the being before him resolves. He looks like his dad, or almost like his dad. His hair is darker than the night, pitch black with a gleam to it like it's wet, like he’s just stepped out of a downpour or climbed out of the sea. And his eyes are not the typical bright blue of the water tribe, but far darker and deeper in the color than any Sokka has ever seen.

“Roku had wanted to be here, but it took toll on many of us to get you back here - even during this point of weakness - so I will have to do for now.” The man says, lifting his own cup and taking a sip of the tea, though Sokka has to wonder if it really is tea at all.

“Weak point? Who are you?” Sokka’s mind is swirling with questions and the man nods understandingly.

“Keep drinking. Hei Bei did a number on you, and this has never been done before. It’s not surprising it’s taking such a toll on you.” The man directs Sokka, and though Sokka does take another sip, he does so more cautiously now, wary of strangers - especially spirit-world strangers. 

“What’s  _ in  _ this?” Sokka asks. There’s a kind of spice to it that dances across his tongue and warms his stomach, a lot like most Fire Nation food. And Sokka knows what Fire Nation food tastes like because he’s had it before. Because Zuko used to cook it for them, and they spent weeks traveling around the Fire Nation. 

“A little of this, and little of that, and a bit of things you don’t want to know about.” The man replied, a mischievous glint in his eyes. 

“We failed.” Sokka says, and has to take a steadying breath. He can remember it now, the sensation of falling from the Fire Nation airship, holding Toph’s hand the entire way down as she holds her other hand out below her to the ground. They both knew they’d splat on the ground before she could do anything to save them bending-wise; ‘soft-landing’ and ‘earthbending’ do not really go well together.

“Not yet.” The man - no, the spirit - promises Sokka. “We have you.”

“Me?” Sokka repeats. 

Oh wait. They do have him.

He had agreed to this.

“There must always be balance, and it is when that balance is broken that we spirits are able to take action to restore it. Sokka, you are the hope or the future.” The spirit said, nodding to Sokka. And now Sokka recognizes him.

“La-” Sokka says, not sure what he’s going to say, but the bamboo forest is fading around him. La doesn’t seem surprised, simply stands up. 

“We all believe in you,” La says, holding out his hand clenched into a fist, “And know you are not alone.”

Sokka holds out a hand and La drops something into it - a cord strung with charms and beads.

Most of the bamboo has faded, but from the last of it emerges Hei Bei in his panda form. He nods to Sokka and La as he passes them, and Sokka knows his cue. He holds onto the string of charms, hands the teacup back to La, and walks forward, back into the bamboo. There is more rustling around him as others join him on their way finally out of the spirit world. 

And Sokka steps out into the past.


	2. Chapter 1 - Returned

“Sokka!”

Sokka blinks as he makes his way out of the bamboo forest and into the sun, almost immediately tackled to the ground by Katara.

“Katara?” He says and hugs her back tightly. He hadn’t known what had happened when she and Zuko went to the palace, whether she had died as well or survived, if they had defeated Azula or not. He supposes it doesn’t really matter, but the anxiety and fear stays with him and he hugs her to reassure himself that she is alive and well.

“Are you okay? Do you know what happened?” Katara asks as she pulls away from him, looking at his face, and Sokka is speechless. 

He hadn’t realized how much she had changed over the course of this year.

She is still most definitely Katara, most definitely his little sister, but there’s just something about her that just looks so different, something that is… soft, almost. 

“Sokka?” Katara repeats, this time sounding a little bit worried, and Sokka realizes he hasn’t answered her question.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m okay. I was just wandering through bamboo.” Sokka says and Katara looks relieved as she smiles and shakes his head.

He thinks about telling her, and he opens his mouth to say that ‘I just died, we all just died, we have a lot of work to do and we’re going to be so much more prepared this time, you just watch’ but he keeps thinking about how small and young she looks. She hasn’t gone through days when food was scarce, nights where they didn’t sleep for fear of being caught, heartache of finding their dad and losing him what felt like over and over and over again. And he doesn’t know how to tell her, how to ruin the naive hope she must still have that the journey will be easy, that they’ll all be okay. 

And so Sokka just yawns and says he’s tired, they don’t have beds in the spirit world - or at least not the part he was in. Aang laughs and hugs him too and Sokka swallows down the lump in his throat. 

He may not have known what had happened to most of the others, but he did know that Aang had died. He had seen Aang there, eyes glowing like when he was in the avatar state, hands cupped in front of him and a light-blue ball of light floating in it. Sokka had wanted to talk to him, but Roku had stopped him, saying they had limited time to do what they needed to.

“Thank you, avatar, how could we ever repay you?” The mayor of the town asks.

“Do you have any food or supplies?” Sokka asks on instinct. They don’t always take rewards for their actions, but whenever they do Sokka always tries to insist on food and supplies. When they’d left the North Pole, what he’d packed lasted a much shorter amount of time than he expected when split between three people instead of two. 

Aang gets dragged into a mob of people singing his praise, Katara among them, and Sokka hangs back, taking the moment alone to really examine what La had given him. It was a simple woven black string with beads and charms on it. The beads were small and broken up into groups of five or so by the dangling charms. There was a fan, a flame, a firefly, a circle with wiggles on it, an acorn, a fox’s head and tail, a circle with a flower on it, and finally a fish underneath a clam. 

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with a gift from a spirit. The spirits had explained why they had chosen him for this, and Sokka still wasn’t sure he believe it, or that he was the best for this, but a bunch of spirits had pulled together to work a lot of powerful magic or whatever to get this to work, so Sokka didn’t really have much choice but to go along with it.

Also the whole world was counting on him, so there was that. 

After a moment, Sokka puts it on his wrist and ties it there, twisting a few of the beads around each other to help lock it in place. While he may not understand the purpose of it, he definitely knows he isn’t supposed to lose it. 

He stays there, at the edge of the group of people, as the mayor explained how hard it currently was to acquire what they were asking for. However, the citizens who had been rescued from the spirit world as well as their families were all quick to chime in that they had something to spare, running to their homes and coming back with extra medicine, old blankets, some jerky they still had left over from winter. Sokka has to admit it always warms his heart a bit when people do things like this for them. During one stop they’d made, a village had banded together to pool their money so that they could buy new furs for Appa’s saddle, and they hadn’t known Aang was the avatar until near the end of the visit.

Sokka finds himself deep in thought. There are so many things to consider about his situation. He wishes he was still in the spirit world, able to talk with La about it - or honestly anybody, he always works better when he thinks out loud and can bounce ideas off someone. 

Because they hadn’t been strong enough. 

But would making their journey better - would telling the others what he knew - actually be able to help? They’d gone through some pretty terrible things, and he definitely didn’t want to have to relive through all of them, but didn’t they make them stronger in some cases? Didn’t it help prepare them? The end of this was one way or another going to end up with them fighting the Fire Nation, and they needed to be better this time, Sokka needed to be better. 

Eventually Aang manages to pull away from the people and Sokka helps Katara and him carry the supplies they were given back to Appa as Aang explains that they need to leave and get to the Fire Nation so that he can talk to Avatar Roku. As the climb up Appa and the flying bison takes to the air, Sokka realizes that Katara is staring at him, brow furrowed. 

“Everything okay?” He asks her.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” Katara replies.

“Me?” Sokka blinks in surprise.

“Are you sure you feel okay? You didn’t catch some kind of spirit flu or something, did you?” Katara presses on, still looking worried. 

“Yeah, I’m just, uh, a little tired. And hungry!” Sokka adds the last part almost as an afterthought and then digs through their bags until he finds some jerky, which he starts eating with gusto and then yawns loudly and dramatically afterwards. Katara doesn’t look like she entirely believes him but lets the issue drop. 

Once Aang gets Appa going in a general direction, he hops over to the main part of the saddle and pulls out a map to make sure he knows where they’re going and when and how long it’ll take, if they’ll be able to make it in time. Katara scoots over towards Aang, pointing out something and asking some questions. Sokka stares at them for a bit, and despite knowing that it will be a difficult road ahead of them, he can’t help but to smile a bit at how happy they look, and the fact that they’re alive.

Everything is going to be okay.

It has to be. 

Sokka closes his eyes, resting against the back of the saddle, and lets himself fall asleep.

oOo

“Back again so soon?”

Sokka jumps, opening his eyes and spinning around to try and figure out who’s talking to him. He doesn’t recognize where he is. All he can see in every direction is water, no more than an inch deep, reflecting the dark sky above. There is no moon, and the stars are unfamiliar. Some of the water directly in front of Sokka rises up like when Katara is preparing a particularly big attack and Sokka braces himself, but instead of coming down on him it shapes into a form of a man. This time, instead of looking like his father, La looks like Bato, even sporting the scared arm. Once again, however, his hair is shiny and black and eyes the deepest depths of the ocean.

“Hey, I’m just taking a nap.” Sokka defends himself. La chuckles, looking around.

“Ah, that makes sense. It’s been a long time since I’ve become so close to a mortal like this, though I suppose you being of the Southern Water Tribe would cause a certain connection between us you likely lack with the others.” La mused. 

“Does that mean Y- or uh, Tui-” Sokka asks, but La is already shaking his head. There is something sad in his expression as he tilts his head up to look towards the sky.

“I’m afraid you won’t be see Tui for a while yet. We both took mortal forms, and though our spirit forms still exist we are both divided in half. Much of Tui’s spirit is in Yue to keep the young girl alive, and the rest is not enough to both take form and maintain our balance.” La explains. Sokka tries not to let his disappointment show, but La seems to pick up on it anyway, crouching down and placing a hand on Sokka’s shoulder. His hand is cold. He doesn’t say anything, and yet Sokka feels comforted, almost warm.

“Uh, others?” Sokka asks in an attempt to change the subject, trying to figure out how he feels about the fact that one of the original waterbenders and he himself had a crush on more or less the same girl. La mercifully takes the bait. One of his hands taps Sokka’s forehead and as shiver runs down Sokka’s spine.

“It seems you had some trouble with your spirit world memories crossing over. It’s very understandable for a mortal, and I’ll admit that we’re rather lucky that’s all that seems to be lacking. It took the combined powers of many spirits to make this possible. Many of them are resting up currently - myself included.” La’s form wavered slightly as he spoke but overall held. La grabbed Sokka’s hand gently, the one with the beads and charms. “Some of us have agreed to give you further help as well. It won’t be much, but we’ll do what we can.”

“Why?” Sokka asks, looking at the charms. 

“Because you can’t fail. And we can’t do this again. There… many complicated things in the spirit world, some things you may not be able to understand and are certainly not your burden to bear, but in doing what we did we risked unleashing something dark and dangerous.” La lifted his gaze from the bracelet off into the distance, and when Sokka turned he couldn't see what it was La was looking towards. Spirit eyesight was probably better than his. 

La looks back to the bracelet and twists it until the circle with the squiggles on it is facing them. He touches it, and the charm flares blue for a moment before coming gray stone once more. He then stood, like he was going to leave, and Sokka grabbed the spirit’s wrist.

“Wait, La,” Sokka says desperately, and La looks at him passively, waiting, “What I am supposed to do? I don’t- should I tell the others, should I keep it a secret? I-I don’t-”

“That is up to you, Sokka. The world ultimately rests in the hands of you and your friends. But if I were to give a suggestion? Aang mastering the elements is the perfect place to start.” 

And then La becomes water once more, falling to the ground with a splash.

**Author's Note:**

> What's the Avatar? The bridge between the spirit world and the mortal world!  
> So what would that make Sokka?  
> Anyway, idk how much I'll actually write for this, or how long it'll be, or what'll even happen, but tbh this is just for fun so yay fun :D


End file.
